


across the stars (is where you'll find my legacy)

by hearden



Series: Legacy of Power [9]
Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 07:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10759689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearden/pseuds/hearden
Summary: She doesn't realize how good of a color pink is on her until wearing it no longer carries the same significance.(A companion oneshot to Legacy of Power.)





	across the stars (is where you'll find my legacy)

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely ties in to ch6 of Legacy of Power which is why I'm posting this... instead of working on ch6 like I should be doing.
> 
> Inspiration music for this whole piece was, oddly enough, Anakin's Symphony by Lucas King. Very beautiful and moving. Much Star Wars, many feels. Also, heavily inspired by MMPR: Pink which can be found here thanks to the Internet Comic Gods: http://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Mighty-Morphin-Power-Rangers-Pink (just scroll down till you see the list of issues and read away!)

There’s nothing quite like experiencing power at her fingertips.

Kimberly’s never felt anything like it, not when she’s on the balance beam, not when she was with the cheer squad back in junior high, not when she kisses her first boy in sixth grade (and, then, later, her first girl in freshman year).

None of it holds up to what morphing feels like.

Her morpher is clunky in her hands, and Kimberly doesn’t know it when she first holds it, but in such small thing, lies her destiny.

When she first morphs, there’s a rush of power, adrenaline through her veins, her heart beating fast enough to burst out of her chest. Everything becomes clearer, _brighter._ Strength that she never could’ve dreamed of possessing, strength that belongs not to her but to The Power buzzes underneath her skin, waiting to be let out.

She’s never shot a bow in her life before, maybe dreamed about it but never tried, but her powers make drawing the bowstring on her Power Bow feel like the most natural thing she’s ever done.

Kimberly becomes indestructible in a way. She doesn’t run out into danger, but throwing herself to the sacrifice for the safety of others isn’t even a conscious _thought._ When her communicator beeps, she tosses everything down and just goes. Angel Grove _needs_ her. It needs the Power Rangers.

She’s one of the only girls fit for the job whenever a monster attacks the city, and she knows it. That knowledge makes her invincible, powerful, courageous. She can truly help others, save lives. Be a force for all that is good and righteous.

 

* * *

 

When she meets Tommy Oliver, she decides right away that she wants to be his friend.

When the gang finds out who the Green Ranger is, her heart aches, and she makes a silent promise to herself that she won’t stop until he’s safe from Rita’s clutches.

 

* * *

 

Choosing between her duty and her dreams is the hardest thing Kimberly’s ever had to do. California or Florida, being a Power Ranger or living out her life?

In hindsight, she knew this day would come, eventually, especially since it’s highly idealistic to think that they’d all stay Zordon’s Rangers forever, but she just didn’t think it’d come this fast.

The night before she tells everyone else, she chooses to stay. In her heart, she thinks of it as the right decision. A life worth living should give credit to what makes it exist in the first place. Her contributions, her role in saving Angel Grove and the world as a Ranger… that’s why she’s even able to be offered a spot at the Pan Global Trials in the first place. The games wouldn’t even _exist_ if Zedd had blasted Angel Grove into smithereens at one point or another.

She chooses to stay because she was chosen, because in her heart, she _is_ a Power Ranger.

 

* * *

 

But, in the end, the others convince her to follow her dreams.

Kimberly hands her power coin over to a girl with sunshine in her hair and a smile that she won’t admit makes her weak in the knees.

The spark that passes between their hands as Katherine takes her coin feels like the closing of a door on an era in her life.

She hears the lock click into place and knows that it won’t open up again.

 

* * *

 

Florida is not California. Obviously.

But, it’s not California in that, when she moves, she feels lost, even in the gym during practice. Kimberly can’t sleep, but when Tommy calls, she doesn’t tell him about how she wakes most nights, thinking she’ll be back in Aisha’s house.

She doesn’t tell him about developing a slight paranoia, wondering if she’ll hear a communicator beep and then suddenly be called out of practice to serve up Tenga steak.

She walks outside and half expects to see a monster terrorizing people in the park.

Kimberly can’t feel The Power in her bones anymore; she _thinks_ she can sense it in Katherine’s hands if she sits down and concentrates hard enough, but that honestly could be her imagination. A lot of things are these days.

Sometimes, she hears news reports about Angel Grove’s Power Rangers and cries herself to sleep with a longing in her heart that no kind of mortal love could fill.

 

* * *

 

She wins her first gold in her first Pan Global Games.

And, then, another and another and another.

None of it feels the same, though, and her eyes are always searching for people in the crowd who aren’t there, who are miles away and are too busy with their duties to come. Kimberly knows they’d support her if she extended the invitation, but she doesn’t and loops herself back into a stupid cycle of disappointment and heartbreak.

 

* * *

 

She calls for Zordon when France becomes  _too_ quiet.

Her original powers come back, hidden deep inside of her, drawing from the "latent energy" Zordon had mentioned.

Morphing for the first time in years is not the same, but Kimberly accepts it with relief in returning to where she belongs and disappointment in the small time she has to burst with adrenaline again.

She leads and serves her own team and finds out that she’s more of a Ranger leader than she expected.

 

* * *

 

In the end, what breaks up Kimberly Hart and Tommy Oliver, Power Couple (ha) of Angel Grove High is not another boy.

It’s not another girl, either.

It’s not even distance or time or priorities or “irreconcilable differences.”

Dozens of crumpled up drafts litter Kimberly’s desk and floor before she finds what she wants to say.

She writes him a letter and lies. Tells him that she’s met someone else in France, that it is both a wonderful thing and a painful thing for her to speak about.

The truth is, though, that there is nobody else. (There could be a potential few somebody’s, actually, but none of them are the reason why she breaks up with Tommy.)

Getting her powers back, even briefly, and fighting alongside the other Rangers again opened up something in her. An epiphany, of sorts.

She is weighed down by guilt, paranoia, pain, and envy.

No longer a Ranger but dating one. It’s like a long-distance relationship except worse because, technically, she hadn’t even known her own boyfriend was on another damn _planet_ and found out purely on accident. Talk about not keeping in touch.

Kimberly can’t handle the helplessness she feels when she thinks about what Tommy could be doing at the moment. Fighting one of Rita and Zedd’s monsters, taking out the Tenga trash.

He needs to live his own life, the only way he knows how, and she needs to find out what her life means in the aftermath. On her own.

So, maybe there _is_ somebody else and that somebody else is her new self.

 

* * *

 

Trini’s funeral is a slap in the face.

She knew they weren’t invincible, never were and never will be, but it’d been a teenager’s fantasy. All of that raw power, all of that heroism still couldn’t stop her best friend from dying.

Everyone shows up, even Katherine, despite the fact that she hadn’t known Trini at all. They’re still family, after all. Her hair is still sunshine, but the smile she gives Kimberly is full of grief and sympathy. Kimberly forces herself to look away, feeling oddly guilty.

Zack is utterly broken; they’d talked about getting engaged. He shows Kimberly the ring he was going to propose with, and it takes her a good three hours to stop crying.

Jason doesn’t meet her eyes; he’d been occupied when she led Zack and Trini against Verto’s forces in France. She doesn’t ask - doesn’t need to - but something tells her that regret sits on his shoulders for not being available when he was needed.

And, now, their best friend is in the ground.

Kimberly curses everything she can possibly curse and throws herself into her training. Forces herself to stop thinking about the ache inside of her because she hurts for too many things to process. If she stops to dwell on them, she’ll drown.

 

* * *

 

She’s called back to action again, against the Armada, and this time, when it’s over, she actually looks Tommy in the eyes.

 

* * *

 

Kimberly moves back to California; Reefside feels like Angel Grove, but not entirely. She finds it _hilarious_ that he’s a high school science teacher but completely believable that he mentored four kids into becoming Power Rangers. (Tommy’s always been the leader with an unnatural confidence that she doesn’t think she’d ever be able to conjure up in herself.)

While he teaches science classes full of teenagers with attitude, she takes up a job as a gymnastics coach.

They get married shortly after she moves in with him. It’s all a little too fast and a little too reckless, but Kimberly figures that’s just the kind of person she is now. They don’t talk about her Dear John letter or about exes ( _especially_ not Katherine because she’s a friend and there’s no reason to ruin romance over a friendship) or about anything bad, really. Sometimes, late at night, Ranger business comes up in the conversation, and they trade stories. Tommy finds out about her piloting Typhonis years ago, is baffled to know that she had been so physically close to him and he hadn’t known. She gets to hear about Conner, Kira, Ethan, and Trent and how black had looked better on Tommy than he had expected.

 

* * *

 

Years later, she finds a girl who looks too much like her for it to be a coincidence.

This girl is lost, somewhat like she used to be, and Kimberly knows there’s a long road ahead for them both.

But, looking at Kim kind of feels like home all over again, even if Angel Grove is different than she remembered. Kimberly finds home in her observations, seeing the way Kim looks at her friends, the yearning love behind her eyes achingly palpable. It takes one to know one.

And, home, even if it’s unclear and broken, is still home. It’s a place for her to rest her head and bundle herself up in warm blankets, to stare at the ceiling and dream about happiness and love and superheroes.

Yet, home is also a person, and when Kimberly sees Kim morph for the first time, a foreign, alien armor warping and molding itself to her body, she realizes it. Home is a place inside of a person, deep in the heart, where things unexplainable make their nest.

Kim looks at her, visor drawn back, and, faintly, in the back of her mind, Kimberly hears that lock from long ago click open.

**Author's Note:**

> what even is this??? who knows. thanks for reading; i love you all.
> 
> first part of the title comes from Across the Stars - John Williams


End file.
